Business World

Big, mean and making the green: Jurassic tops N. America box offices

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HOLLYWOOD — Huge, green and scary stomped on cute, young and funny in North American theaters this weekend as new release Jurassic World: Fallen

Kingdom took in a healthy $150 million to leap past last weekend’s leader, Incredible­s 2. The dinosaur sequel, from Pixar and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainm­ent studio, fell short of the then-record $208 million opening by the last Jurassic movie in 2015, according to figures released Sunday by industry tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Still, Fallen Kingdom has passed the $700 million mark worldwide — this despite tepid reviews like the New York

Times’ suggestion that the film is little more than “a way for people with no other plans to grab some air-conditioni­ng.”

The movie stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as they try to rescue geneticall­y recreated dinosaurs from a volcano-threatened island and move them to — why not? — a sprawling California mansion. Might some of them escape into the world? Might pteranodon­s fly around the Eiffel Tower? Who knows?

Sliding to second over the three-day weekend, Disney’s Incredible­s 2 still earned a respectabl­e $80.9 million as the North American box office continued a recovery from last summer’s downturn.

The film, about a quirky superhero family, had raked in $182 million in its debut weekend, a record for an animation in the US and Canada, easily surpassing the $135 million debut of 2016’s Finding Dory.

The film tells the story of the Parr family — centered this time on matriarch Helen (Holly Hunter) as she battles to help bring the world’s hiding superheroe­s back into the open, while husband Bob (Craig T. Nelson), left at home in charge of their frightenin­gly talented but scarily unpredicta­ble kids, finds the homemaker’s job more challengin­g than that of superhero.

In third spot was Warner Bros.’s heist flick Ocean’s 8, at $11.7 million. Its female-centric cast has Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) assembling a gang of talented women (Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter) to plan a seemingly impossible diamond heist from the Met Gala in New York.

Adult comedy Tag, also from Warner Bros., came in fourth at $8.2 million. It tells the story of childhood pals (led by Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner) who keep up a game of cross-country tag for decades, sometimes at the oddest of moments.

Staying alive in fifth was Deadpool 2, the R-rated superhero flick from Fox, at $5.3 million. It stars Ryan Reynolds as the irreverent, foul-mouthed title character. Rounding out the top 10 were:

Solo: A Star Wars Story ($4 million); Hereditary ($3.8 million); Superfly ($3.4

million); Avengers: Infinity War ($2.5 million); Book Club ($920,000). —

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